The Rolling Stones
by The Cat's Whiskers
Summary: Lucifer has risen and disappeared;a shell-shocked Sam and bewildered Dean don't know whether to do anything, or nothing - and then a familiar foe tosses their hat into the ring and things get brain-achingly complicated even for the Winchester brothers.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**Note:** This story ties in with my story **_Give and Take_** (it is a sort of indirect sequel), but is (mostly) stand-alone – you don't have to read that to follow this, and you don't have to read this to read that, etc.

This story takes place in 'the summer of 2009' (after the Season 4 finale, _Lucifer Rising_ in May and before the Season 5 premiere in September). It may (or may not) therefore turn out to be 'AU' because I am working on the presumption that Eric Kripke will (probably) not go down the route of making Sam the 'host'. (Since the 'cage' turned out to be a convent not 'of flesh' (i.e., within a human) and surely, as the biggest bad of them all and an angel, not a former human, Lucifer doesn't _need _a host?)

I am therefore going to presume the Season 5 premiere will be along the lines that after the boys being 'blinded by the light', they found themselves alone at ground zero with Lucifer having skipped out and loose on the world, whilst the archangel was busy giving aggravation to Chuck and Castiel. This story starts a couple of weeks or so later, when they're still clueless as to where Lucifer is, what he's doing, how they're going to stop him, etc, and where there is a worrying silence from 'upstairs' following up Dean and Castiel's monumental screwing up of Zachariah's neat little Apocalypse Now wipe-out-the-pesky-humans-and-it-will-be-paradise plan. **NB** - this story contains violence, sexualised scenes, the odd expletive, a lot of angst and brooding. I would rate it as definitely T-M although given what even most pre-adolescent kids watch and read these days how meaningful that is I cannot say.

**ROLLING STONES **

**Chapter 1**

_Damn it! _He'd dropped it from, like, two feet above the carpet, how could it have bounced so far under the bed?! And _this _place was barely above a charge-by-the-hour 'hooker hotel'; there was stuff under here that had probably evolved to the point where any second now it would try and strike up a _conversation_. His fingertips waggled _juuuust_ a millimetre…too…far…too….far…to…and he felt a faint prickling/tingling sensation _inside _his skull.

_No_.

Sam remained kneeling at the side of the bed but closed his eyes for a moment consciously relaxing his muscles and calming his frustration down – that was what had triggered what Bobby had called his brain's 'autonomic reflex' to fix his frustration – by simply using his telekinesis to get the cigarette lighter.

And that was the problem; your heartbeat was an autonomic reflex, it required no conscious effort or control. He had been too emotionally flattened by Ruby's bombshell that the power had always been his '_you don't need the feather, Dumbo!_' that he had been able to do nothing but clutch at Dean when – because of _his_ stupidity, gullibility and pride – the Devil himself had broken out of jail!

Perhaps fortunately, there had been that clichéd 'flash of blinding light' and Lucifer was gone, leaving the pair of them in a shaking building that was crashing down all around them. Sam had no real idea how they'd managed to stagger clear of the collapsing masonry. He'd been virtually catatonic, literally numb and dumb with shock, only aware of Dean's voice as an indistinct murmur as his brother drove with one-hand at terrifying speed and talked will his cell jammed against his neck.

Apparently, though Dean had to tell Sam again, later, when the fog began to lift, the archangel that Castiel and Chuck had been fending off had simply stopped and gone away at what would have been the exact moment Lucifer also pulled his vanishing act to G- who-knew-where. _Chuck Shirley _voluntarily getting in the face of an archangel? It was hysterical, in more ways than one. However, both Chuck and Cas – which sounded like a music hall double act – were adamant that there had been as complete a silence from Upstairs since Lucifer had risen and Zachariah's Apocalypse Now plan had clearly blown up in his celestial face as there had been from Downstairs since Lucifer had risen.

Somehow Bobby's kitchen had become command central and Sam had admitted during one 'war' session with himself, Dean, Bobby and Castiel that he _should_ have known the demon blood was at best a placebo and an outright McGuffin. After all, he'd witnessed the other psychics pull of almost the same feats with no need for hellish haemoglobin, so he should have acknowledged that the issue lay with him, Sam, not the powers or Azazel…

"_Look we __**both **__missed it," Dean's were moss-green with concern as they looked at him because they were always that way now when they looked at him, like he was a hand grenade with a faulty pin that had to be handled with extreme care because it was either going to do nothing or going to blow your hand off any second. "That baby, Rosie, was psychic before Azazel did the B&E into her nursery and we got her before he did, so he didn't give her the powers."_

"_Still is a psychic baby – or kindergartener now," Bobby put in. "Missouri Moseley moved to the same town as Rosie last year. I asked her to check up – she says Rosie's got the whammy. The parents have got a new baby boy. When mom was 6 months along, Rosie starts screaming the place down. They rush her to ER where she magically sits up fine just as mom doubles up and loses blood and needed foetal surgery."_

But the knowledge only made Dean more frightened of him. Oh, not that he said or did anything – right now Dean was the rock Sam's shattered heart and battered psyche were cleaving to limpet-like, but Sam knew Dean had desperately been hoping that with Ruby dead, alongside Azazel, Lillith and Alistair, that Sam's powers would similarly be deep-sixed.

Sam knew that because he had been hoping the same thing – again, knowing he was undeserving of being able to save face, Sam had confessed to them that in the back of his mind, one of the reasons he had been so eager to confront Lillith was _because _of the searing headaches and nosebleeds – his hope had been that going up against something of Lillith's power would metaphorically burn what he believed to be Azazel's infection out of him like a fire that was extinguished when it consumed all the fuel. Since Azazel was dead, courtesy of Dean, there was no more fuel, ergo, the fire could never be relit.

Which left him in his current state – sickened by his own stupidity, mortified by his arrogance, and terrified of himself. When Dean and Cas had been outside in the yard – ostensibly feeding the Rottweillers Bobby bred – Sam had talked to Bobby, who had told him that trying to shut his powers down now – after he had reached the level of killing demons with his _mind _– was like bolting the stable door as you watched your Kentucky Derby hopeful disappearing over the horizon at top speed.

Rosie's example alone showed that it was natural to use the abilities instinctively, and unless Sam exercised constant vigilance, his mind would just 'do' what was now natural to it since Ruby's subterfuge had unbolted the mental doors Sam had placed around his abilities; the trouble with constant vigilance was that you couldn't maintain it for long – people rarely thought about the fact that their heart was beating, their lungs were inflating, their stomach was digesting without them having to monitor any to ensure they were doing it right or were keeping on doing it.

Sam knew it too well – yet another night staring at the ceiling of their bedroom at Bobby's in self-loathing and bitter remorse had been interrupted when Dean, sleeping restlessly and fidgeting, had rolled to the very edge of the bed and Sam, without even thinking about it, telepathically rolled him back over the other way saving him from a painful jolt if he'd fallen out. He hadn't even realised for nearly a minute afterwards what he'd done!

But he would _not _disappoint Dean by using his powers for anything, sure as hell not his own convenience, because he didn't deserve to have any convenience. Even when he was alone, he would not indulge himself, because it just made it harder. Other people like Dean and Bobby had to get up from the table and walk across the kitchen to get the peanut butter, so he would have to. Other people couldn't magic their cigarette lighter from under the bed, so neither could he –

Right, he leaned forward under the bed one more time and tried to inch forward in the small space. Just a little bit – nearly – _ouch _– he rapped his head as the maid rapped the door with fresh towels.

"Sure, just leave 'em on the bed!" Wait – wait…yes! His fingers got the corner of the lighter, tightened, and held. He drew back, grinning down at his prize. "Finally, my day is getting better."

"I'm afraid not, darling."

The amused, familiar voice made him twist his head sharply around and up and he had a split-second to stare at the speaker before the sap smartly smacked against his head and pitched him into oblivion.

Continued in Chapter 2

_© The Cat's Whiskers_


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**ROLLING STONES **

**Chapter 2**

Uuh…doodled on m arm…musta fe sleep…

_Tha bad. Pumiced Body be kick…quick…chick out lead on Lucy…back before Dean…_

_Dean…_

_Before Dean n Cas got back…Dean…pick me nest time, go wi me no Cas…my brother…no Cas…be god…no…be good. Good, make Dean not angry any more, like me better than Cas…_

_Dean…head…oooh…spuzzy muzzzzzzzzzy…head…arm…ooh drilled…no…_

_Drooled, on arm…? Was weighing hoodie…on arm...bare arm…drool not hoodie arm drool on skin arm drool…uh. Dean be mad..._

_Dean…after Dean…DEAN!_

"..aaa…"

"…_Ka…el.._"

"_Castiel."_

"_CAH-STEE-EL!!!"_

…

"_CAH-STEE-EL!!!"_

Shabby old coat…wafting about…big wings…

Right. Castiel. Dean. Castiel…Dean. Now. Urgent. Focus.

"Sam, listen to me, I said, what have you done?"

"_Go back to Dean_!"

"What?"

"Get to Dean! Now! He – he – in danger. Terrible danger. Could be murdered any second."

"Sam – who? I do not understand –"

"No time! Stay with Dean! You never leave him, you guard him!"

"Of course, but –"

"NO! You protect Dean. I – I - I be…okay…just little rest. Okay. _Go!_"

Gone. Protecting Dean. Good.

_Uuh…must got cushioned. Just…oops, just hurled all over Cassie's shoes…no…he gone…gone to save Dean…no…not lie down here…eew gross…move away…move hands _

_Yeah…hand, knee, hand, knee, here…lie down…wait revolver…no…recover…recovery position…heh heh…reverse cowgirl…that's a position…no not sex potion….musta put me in recovery position…after hit me…I do it now…important…not choke if I hurl again…yeah…lie down…recover…ooh, better, better head…cant words…swirl…wrong words…just rest…just a minute…just…_

Continued in Chapter 3

_© The Cat's Whiskers_


	3. Chapter 3

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**ROLLING STONES **

**Chapter 3**

_Ow! _Something hard whacked him right on the tip of his nose-

"_Sammy! _C'mon, please!"

Dean?

Vaguely realising that the deep groaning like an arthritic 80-year-old was coming from _him_, he struggled to sit upright; the nose assaulting culprit had been Dean's charm necklace, since he was kneeling beside Sam, helping him slowly sit up with reassuringly solid arms.

His head was _killing _him…and he had goose-bumps…why had he taken his hoodie off…and why did he have…_panty elastic? _tied around his arm…and _uck why did his mouth taste like…ew, _because he obviously had, over there. Yuck.

"Uuuh…" a bright light was shone in his eyes by…Bobby…needing to take the mouthwash to the next level dude…

"Pupil reaction's fine. He's just got a mild concussion. What did you _do_, boy?"

"How many mild concussions does it take to get a fatal haematoma?" Dean shot back at Bobby. "Sam? Don't make any sudden moves, okay. You're concussed."

_News from the file marked 'duh'_. "Dean…" he leaned his forehead against Dean's shoulder as Dean instinctively moved his arm further around Sam's back to support him; for a moment Sam just let himself relax and enjoy the feeling of safety engendered by being able to let Dean take care of him…

"_Sam,_" the urgency and sharpness of Bobby's tone indicated he'd repeated his name more than once. "What happened? What did you do?"

_Nothing_. Finding his headache to be excruciating but barely bearable Sam reluctantly moved his head back from Dean's harbouring shoulder, confused. Why had he got – elastic, some sort of rubber band? around his arm…there was a big bruise just below his elbow…trying to push aside the fog he peered at Bobby's sunken fearful eyes and managed to inwardly translate '_what did you do?_'as Bobby's self-recriminating '_I shouldn't have said you didn't need another go-round in the panic room_'.

But he _didn't_. Oh sure, he still felt like crap – constantly aching, weary, cold, sore-eyed – but that was it. Ruby's admission that her blood wasn't mystical crack cocaine but actually the demonic version of a sports energy drink had sent him reeling, but after Dean got him back to Bobby's after Lucifer had tripped the light fantastic and fandago'd who-knew-where, Sam had _not_ suffered the terrible, searing withdrawal complete with not-fun aural and visual hallucinations that he _had _been enduring back when – apparently - _Castiel_ had let him out on Zachariah's express orders; Sam had been sitting on _that _titbit of knowledge for a while, and the angel seemed as oblivious as Dean and Bobby.

Bobby had told him and Dean – and Castiel, who had been doing his now-comes-as-standard loitering in a corner of the room, making like an umbrella stand routine – that it was because everybody concentrated on the solid and tangible, when really the _mind _was far more powerful than pretty much anything.

He'd reminded them of when they'd taken out Mordecai the Tulpa, and how Sam had been smart enough to wonder _'how many o'the things we hunt only exist 'cause folks believed in 'em, or believed in 'em enough. Y'went through cold turkey hell 'cause your __**mind**__ believed that the demon blood was the mystic version o' heroin or crack, but then your brain learned it was n'worse than knockin' back mugs o' double espressos, just like yah had no trouble usin' your powers like a pro' when you thought it was the blood not you. Now what passes fuh that brain o' yours knows the truth you don't need the blood and you ain't goin' through no nightmare withdrawal.'_

But the look on Bobby's face showed clearly he was rethinking that theory, and given the fact that he had a blinding headache, had hurled, and been found drooling on the carpet in a skeezy motel room with – a bit of rubber tubing? What _was _this thing and it was starting to dig into his bicep? tied around his arm, Sam couldn't blame Bobby for not trusting Sam further than he could throw –

_Not trusting me, period._ But all his focus had been on -

Dean!

"_Are you crazy!_" he yelled at the errant angel. "I told you to protect Dean!"

"I am unable to detect any danger to Dean." Castiel responded.

"Oh yeah, like Zachariah was _no danger _to him!" yelled Sam, ignoring his agonising head. "This could be a trap to lure Dean out! All of you need to get out of here now!"

"Sam, put a sock in it!" Dean could out-bellow Sam any day of the week, technically bigger lungs or not. "I'm not going anywhere and Cas isn't stupid enough to try and make me. Bobby said you set off on a quick round trip to check out a lead on our 'L' of a problem, and you should have been back way before me and Cas, next thing Cas does the whole beam me up Scotty routine and reappears to tell us that you're out of it in some skeevy motel yelling about how I'm about to be massacred. What happened?"

"She blindsided me is what happened." Sam retorted. "One sawn off nightstick to the head is what happened. A maid delivering towels, how could I have been so dumb…"

"Some motel maid I've never met is out to gank me?" Dean looked as though he were about to haul Sam down to the ER for an MRI.

"She wasn't the maid…" Sam looked at Dean fearfully. "Dean…it was _Bela._"

Continued in Chapter 4

_© The Cat's Whiskers_

Author's Note – Jensen and Jared have both confirmed they have signed a six-year contract to play the characters, though Eric Kripke has only signed for five; however, I am still going to work on the premise that the Season 5 premiere plot will be as I suppose, with Lucifer out loose in the world and Dean and Sam on the back foot playing catch up. I am also going to presume there will be Season 6. On the one hand, I love the show, on the other I don't want it end up like Lost, dragging on three seasons after it should have finished and gone out at the top of its game.


	4. Chapter 4

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**ROLLING STONES **

**Chapter 4**

The blood drained from Dean's face so fast it was like watching water pour from a holed bucket.

"Sam, Bela Talbot's dead," Bobby began.

"She got better!"

"Sam, it's –"

"Bobby, if the next word coming out of your mouth is going to be 'impossible', then can I point out…" leaning heavily on the bed, Sam was able to lever himself upright and sit on the edge of the bed, grimly controlling his nausea, "…that you're standing in a room with a psychic freak, a warrior of god and a guy possessed by an angel! I think it's safe to say that 'impossible' got burned 'n' urned back in 1850 when good old Colonel Colt invented a magic gun that killed demons for his best buddy."

"_She was my first…_I think I'm gonna hurl." Dean was ashen, and had remained kneeling next to the bed as if his limbs had lost all power to move.

Sam reached out his hand, squeezing Dean's nearest shoulder, hating that he was helpless to comfort him. "I _know_…"

"Ah _don't!_" Bobby looked from one to the other with visibly confused irritation.

Feeling his own anger surge at the badgering, Sam was about to retort, but Dean slowly stood up and faced Bobby and Castiel. "My first victim – when I…got off the rack - Alistair told me I needed to start as I would go on, and the first…"

"Bela Talbot was the 'weeping…bitch'" Castiel uttered the word with clear reluctance, "that Alistair taunted you about when –"

"When Uriel tricked _you_ into making Dean go Dungeon Master again," Sam snarled at the angel. "And you _still _didn't get a clue that Zachariah had gone Dark Side -"

"_But she never cried again_."

Dean's harsh words cut through the incipient acrimony.

"What do you mean, son?" Bobby asked the question softly, but gave both Sam and Castiel a scorching glare that quite plainly told them he would kick _both_ their asses into next week if they didn't shut their yap, pronto.

"She was chained down, and she was crying…but when I…began…to cut her…she stopped crying. And no matter how much I stabbed and sliced…no matter how many times, she never wept again. I moved on to new victims, I had no idea where she was taken or what happened…"

Bobby pushed back his baseball cap, looking as if he dearly wanted a large Scotch. Sam reciprocated the feeling, but Bobby's was currently a dry house after Sam finally came out of his fugue state 24-hours after the whole Lucifer loose debacle and in a state of self-loathing downed everything remotely 'percentage' proof and tried to get hold of a pistol. Dean, stone cold sober, had easily taken the gun off him, but then he had spent a solid hour crying like a baby in Dean's arms, terrified that Dean hated him and didn't want him to be his brother any more. His gruesome hangover and utter post-intoxication humiliation had been made complete when Bobby had just not bought any more booze.

"Sam, I ain't arguin' that…_it_…mighta _looked_ like Bela." Bobby ventured. "But she were killed same time as Dean and in the same way. Even if the hellhounds didn't tear her apart, and even if somebody had her buried not burned…the rate of rotting…"

"It was only four months in the dirt, but my body needed – literally – _an act of God _to make my meat suit good as new again," Dean interposed. "And unless there was a celestial buy-one-get-one-free deal on offer that day…?"

"There was…not…only Dean was restored." Castiel confirmed.

"It had to be a –"

"It _wasn't_." Sam shook his head and immediately regretted it as his stomach lurched; okay, not smart. "Why do you all think I'm so _freaked_ out here?! It _wasn't_ a zombie, or a revenant or a ghoul – because I would have been eaten if it were. It wasn't a skinwalker because they can only kill the living, and Bela's been dead – was dead. And it wasn't a shapeshifter or even our Trickster because it didn't _need_ to impersonate a maid – or Bela – to gank me. All it had to do was thump on the door as _you_ Bobby, or Dean or even Constantine-lite here. I would have let any of 'you' in without hesitation. I don't know _how, _but what I am telling you categorically is that I was knocked senseless by _the_ _Bela Talbot_ - definitive article. In her own body and her own mind. She wasn't possessed; she wasn't astrally projecting, she wasn't a ghost, spectre, spirit or evil pixie. She was here in this room and she was as real and solid as the three of you are."

They were silenced in the face of his earnest vehemence, and Sam saw doubt and belief vying for supremacy across his brother's face. "Dean, think about it. Dad escaped from hell, and if _you_ had to pick any person to have the brains, the guts and the sheer brazen audacity to try and be the _second_-ever escapee from the pit – "

"Then Bela would've been top of my very short shortlist," Dean admitted quietly. "So you sicc'd Cas into Kevin Costner mode because she's coming for me for revenge. Terrific. We just got rid of Lillith and Ruby now we got Luci and Bela. It's like a music hall double-act competition."

"But Bela did not go after Dean." Castiel cocked his head slightly on one side, looking at Sam with that unnerving unblinking manner he had, which made Sam always think of those lions in nature documentaries, where you could see them trying to work out whether to just kill you or kill you and eat you. "Bela came after _you_."

Continued in Chapter 5…

_© The Cat's Whiskers_


	5. Chapter 5

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

_This story is for Stacey. Hope you like it!_

**ROLLING STONES **

**Chapter 5**

"That's my _point_!" Sam snapped at the angel – how dense could an angel be – although given Castiel's track record of maximum cluelessness with Uriel and Zachariah, that in _itself_ was a dumb question. "This," he waved a hand around the room, " – me - could be a _trap_ to get at _Dean_, which is why you _weren't_ supposed to bring him _straight back to the bait_!"

"Alright!" declared Bobby forcefully. "We're gonna Sherlock Holmes this sucker."

"Meaning?" demanded Dean.

"Meanin' whatever's left after all other possibilities have been eliminated hasta be thuh answer," Bobby retorted. "Okay, it _was _Bela, in her own body, under her own steam, in her own mind, in this room. We have no idea how she managed it, so that's irrelevant to be worryin' about right now, so we're movin' this on, 'cause it does give us somethin' we _can _be sure about –"

Dean and Sam exchanged pre-emptively worried looks. "What?"

"That she's been topside for a while," Bobby claimed confidently. "No way did Bela make like Houdini from the pit _yesterday_ or even last week. This wasn't some opportunistic wrong-time-wrong-place mugging-turned-murder kinda deal. It was well planned, with surveillance and stalking. Bela was clearly watching Sam to see when he would be separated and on his own – or at least close enough to it for her to make a move."

"I didn't close my curtains." Sam admitted in realisation, ruefully explaining, "I dropped my lighter and it bounced under the bed and I couldn't reach it. Bela was probably lurking across the way for a while with a pair of field-glasses trained through the window on me and seized her opportunity – unless of course we believe it was _coincidence _that Bela decided to try her luck at the exact moment I was scrabbling about on the floor and too distracted to pay proper attention?"

Bobby's scornful snort of air through his nostrils was ample enough answer, but Dean's face was grim as he finally reached out and pulled the constricting plastic tube free from Sam's bicep, tossing it on the bed. "Which brings us back to Cas's point. You raise no defence against an enemy _you don't know is there_. It's the reason people need demon hunters in the first place. Somehow Bela's been topside and apparently unhindered for a while, and she _could _have ganked me anytime she wanted. So if she was after me why give up the massive advantage she has – our total unawareness of her presence – by letting Sam see who she was – and letting him live to tell us?"

"She was after _me _all along," Sam actually relaxed slightly in relief. Bela after his blood he could deal with, but the mere thought of losing Dean was enough make him want to hurl. He had far too much work to do in making it up to Dean for his stupidity for a start.

But Bobby's eyes narrowed thoughtfully, almost as if he were listening in on Sam's thoughts. "Yeah…after _you_ – after _your blood_."

Automatically Sam looked down at his arm and raised it to peer at the darkening bruise at his elbow, wherein he could see – a puncture mark. "_She took my blood_. That was what the tubing was for – to raise the veins. From how light-headed I feel, at least a couple of pints." He groaned. "I don't even want to _think_ about how many arcane rituals she could use two pints of my blood for. Even though it's demon-lite now Ruby – " he broke off, as they both avoided _that _name like it was swearing in church.

But abruptly Dean narrowed his eyes. "Wait a minute. It's more than that, _isn't it_, Cas?"

The angel looked surprised – no, guilty.

Dean cranked up the glare. "When you were able to possess Jimmy's poor kid, Claire, you told both of 'em, it was _in their blood_."

"And Ruby admitted that _I'd_ _always had the powers_ without demon blood – hers or Azazel's," Sam jumped in, "which _you_ knew damn well when you _lied_ to Dean that I would need to consume massively more of the stuff to kill Lillith so you could trick him into becoming your angels' slave!"

"Dean made the commitment voluntarily –"

"I made it because you were implying that otherwise the only option was for my brother to have to chug enough of Ruby's red to mutate into some sort of supernatural Godzilla to take out Lillith and destroy himself in the process!" Dean protested. "When it was _my _fault that Lillith was able to bring on the Apocalypse in the first place! You knew there was no way I would let _Sam_ pay the price for _my_ failing to suck it up and hold out against Alistair!"

"Just like you also _knew _that I was _already_ capable of killing Lillith at that point – that's why _you_ _let me out of Bobby's panic room_ in the first place!" _ah, gotcha!_

"Wait - _what?!_" snapped Dean looking back and forth between his vengefully satisfied brother perched on the bed with a pallid face and the hunted, haunted, trapped visage of Castiel who had been backed into a corner metaphorically as well as literally.

"How could you know this?" Castiel's question was a tacit confession and the angel flinched and dropped his eyes from Dean's fulminating glare.

"Because contrary to the way I've been acting recently I do have a brain when I take my head out of my ass long enough to put it in gear," Sam retorted. "_Something _let me out of that panic room. _They _wouldn't, and Ruby couldn't. So that left the celestial contingent – Uriel's dead, Anna wouldn't have let me out any more than Bobby would've, which left _you_. Given the way you and that genocidal sociopathic boss of yours have spent the last year messing with Dean's head and screwing with our every attempt to actually _stop _the end of the world, it wasn't rocket science to figure out that you'd reverted to type and gone into full on dick mode. But, if that's not enough, I also had a very enlightening post-Lucifer loose chat with I-am-the-Prophet-Chuck who gave me the low-down. Ending up having to face off against his _own _guardian archangel because Angel-General Zachariah turned out to be an Uriel mass-murdering wannabe apparently enabled our favourite Chuckle to finally grow a pair and discover he had a spine as well."

"You do not understand that I had no choice –"

Angrily Sam surged up from the bed ignoring the way the room spun warningly. "Don't give me that crap! You just made _the wrong choice_ – you picked saving your job – your picked keeping your corner cloud with the choir invisible stock option over _doing the right thing_, because Zachariah gave you a slap on the wrist. And you _kept_ choosing to cover your ass. Chuck _saw _how you lured Anna to be grabbed by Zach's goon squad – or was it death squad – "

"_Enough!_" Castiel turned his head away as Sam got in his face.

"Like _hell _it's enough!" Sam used the phraseology deliberately. "Come on Cas', tell me, how _is_ Anna these days?"

Continued in Chapter 6…

_© The Cat's Whiskers_


	6. Chapter 6

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

_NB – I offer heartfelt thanks to _**_Rahne2_**_ whose review of Give & Take Chapter 9 was not only very nice blushes but prevented me from making a fairly monumental "continuity error" in these few chapters. I don't mean to mess up "canon" wholesale, but honestly, I have a memory like a sieve; it's embarrassing. _

**ROLLING STONES **

**Chapter 6**

Dean made a soft sound, and his face had gone as distinctively green as it had when Sam had revealed that Bela Talbot had whacked him over the head. He took a step back in revulsion. "You had Anna _killed_?"

"_No!_"

They all flinched as Castiel's voice reverberated in a way no human larynx could manage and every glass object in the vicinity crackled warningly.

"Zachariah ordered me to detain Anna – he was sure she would manifest to protest over me releasing you," Castiel told Sam, visibly taking a deep breath, "so he could place her in detention until judgement was passed on her disobedience."

"And no way were you stupid enough to believe him for an instant," Sam charged.

"No, I wasn't." Castiel retorted with a hint of fire. "I managed to persuade Zachariah that he had too much to keep check on to worry about…dealing…with Anna right then, and my intention was to somehow help her after…"

"After Zachariah's master plan came off and all the demons and us pesky humans had been slaughtered," Dean recovered his equilibrium somewhat, "leaving Zach the douchebag in a hopefully magnanimous mood? You _idiot_, Zachariah's a bureaucrat. His plan was never going to work even if he _had_ support from further up the food chain – and the archangel rattling Chuck's cage ixnay'd that idea fairly comprehensively, didn't it?"

"After the archangel suddenly went away, I went back to Anna's…prison," Castiel admitted. "But she was just gone."

"Gone how?" demanded Sam.

"Join the list of us who would love to know," Castiel responded snippily. "It was a hermetically sealed environment, not even an archangel could have escaped unaided, yet Anna was simply…gone. I – nobody – has any idea where she is or what she is doing."

Dean looked sick again, "Maybe Zachariah already – "

Castiel shook his head vigorously. "No. When an event of…such magnitude occurs…there are ripples that spread – huge ripples, like tossing a boulder into a millpond. I would know…_we_ would all know. Lucifer's fall alone rocked the stars in their courses – the actual _death _of an angel is exponentially more…affecting."

"Big deal," Sam claimed. "Hopefully Anna's learned to keep a continent or two between her and her dear old 'brethren', but the fact is you _didn't have_ a momentary lapse of reason – you kept picking your own skin over doing the right thing – you tricked Dean into making a deal to become some celestial slave just like the crossroads demon did, then you let me out, you sold out Anna, oh, and let's not forget the icing on the cake with changing Dean's voicemail message to me – which _would _have stopped me in my tracks had I got the _real _message."

"Yeah, imagine my surprise when Sam let me listen to what he'd _heard_, and then I let him listen to what I'd actually _sent_." Dean's tone would have flayed granite.

Castiel shook his head again negatively. "It was Zachariah who changed the message, when he let slip that he…"

"Lemme guess this one," put in Bobby, so far just watching their recriminatory exchanges, "Zachariah made _sure_ yawl was too late gettin' to Dean in the pit in the first place?"

Having never considered that notion, both Sam and Dean looked at Castiel whose expression confirmed Bobby's astuteness, but then Bobby hid a lot of smarts beneath that hayseed exterior and that hillbilly talk.

Castiel finally met Dean's stormy eyes squarely. "_You_ did not fail, _I_ did. The breaking of the first seal could have been prevented. But your death…was not expected."

"What, you just never noticed that year of my life?" Dean snapped.

Castiel ran a hand through his hair and for a moment Sam almost felt a pang of sympathy for the angel. _Almost_.

"John Winchester was the first righteous man ever to end up in…everyone from Azazel to Lillith to Alistair – to us, including, in hindsight, even Zachariah, expected _him _to break the first seal. Not only did he never do that, he then escaped with so many others when Jake Tulley opened the Devils' Gate and he even co-killed Azazel. At that point confusion was the order of the day for heaven and hell both. And even though you made a similar deal…right up until the end we were expecting you to find a way out – two righteous men, father and son, in rapid succession? Preposterous. We were unprepared…"

"Which made it easier for Zachariah to fudge it by making sure you – what was it? – 'laid siege to hell' too late." Dean summarised bitterly, "and for him to keep on hiding the fact that the origin of his 'orders' was about as Divine as Hugh Grant's ho'."

"And even when you found out they came from no higher than Zachariah's own mouth, you just carried on." Sam accused.

Castiel straightened his shoulders slightly. "And I told you that you did not understand I had no choice. Zachariah gave me one option – repudiate my…over-attachment to humanity – as embodied by Dean…and you and Bobby…or else he would force me to take Claire Novak as my host – forever. A female Peter Pan, trapped possibly for millennia, static and stuck in space and time." Castiel emphasised. "Jimmy Novak despises me enough already for failing to properly protect his family, and he hates me for making it so he can never be with them again."

"Cas'…" Dean began.

"No, Dean, I didn't dare risk telling you – Zachariah wouldn't have hesitated if he had found out. I couldn't let Jimmy down again, not after how I've failed him already."

"Big deal," condemned Sam, unwilling to forgive that Dean had been coerced into yet another deal that would probably get him horribly killed by the very beings that were supposedly on the side of Good and Right. "Jimmy will have to suck it up and deal. He's not the only father here who can't be with his family again."

After a good five seconds of confused silence, Dean's face cleared; with clear regret he corrected, "Sam, Ben isn't my son –"

"Yeah, and I'm _not _psychic." Sam snorted.

"Lisa did a blood test –"

"She _said_ she did a blood test," Sam corrected. "What she _did _was be brave enough and good enough to give you an out so you could carry on helping people. And at what point during your "bendiest weekend ever" do you _remember_ her sticking a hypo in some part of you," he waggled his own abused arm, "and drawing off a vial of haemoglobin on the off-chance of needing to use it to test a baby neither of you had any intention of conceiving?"

"Which brings us back to why Bela came after _you_," Bobby interjected, "to steal your blood."

"Right," Dean turned back to the room's heavenly rep, "you were just about to _tell us everything_ about this 'special blood' Sam, and Jimmy – and poor Jimmy's poor little girl Claire - got lumbered with."

"It is your blood as well, Dean, and Bobby's."

"Whoa, Michael Landon," Bobby shoved back his baseball cap and glared at Castiel. "There ain't nothin' in these veins 'cept bog-standard no-account O Neg – and p'rhaps a tad more Johnny Walker Blue Label 'n' some might consider healthy."

Castiel hadn't ever evinced any real sense of humour, deadpan or otherwise, but he actually managed to crank up 'deadly serious' another notch. "It is in your blood because you and Jimmy are all Scions of Mary."

"Mah mama was named Ellie-Mae –"

"Sigh-uhn…" Dean repeated the unfamiliar word uncertainly.

"_You have got to be kidding me_…" Sam breathed, staring at Castiel in raw shock.

"I am not – kidding you."

Sam threw up his arms, in disbelief or anger even he couldn't have said, missing whacking Dean's ear by a whisker, "You are not seriously trying to get us to swallow the notion that we are all descendents of the _Virgin Mary_?! That's…that's…"

"Huh…" Bobby, incredibly, made a thoughtful noise even as Dean's jaw dropped and he stared bug-eyed at the crazy angel's ridiculous implication.

"Bobby!" protested Sam.

"What? Boys, it's perfectly possible; in fact, if you go by the numbers, the stats come out that it's actually _probable_."

"Everybody just hit the brakes!" Dean shook his head in a tiny, rapid movement and pinched the bridge of his nose before looking from Bobby to Castiel as if he was seriously considering forcing _them_ into the panic room to cold turkey. "Bobby, you have no problem with Harpo here claiming that Jimmy Novak and you and both me and Sammy are all descendents of _the _Mary. Mother of _our Lord_, Mary? Come on, at least Sam would have the excuse of being _concussed_ if he bought this –"

"You demanded to know what was special about Jimmy's blood, and Claire's and Sam's," Castiel put in with slight challenge in his tone. "You are all, including Jimmy, genetically descended from Mary and Joseph. I am telling you –"

"Tell us _later_," growled Bobby suddenly. " 'Cause the local sheriff's car has just cruised past this motel agin fer the second time in as many minutes."

Sam and Dean exchanged knowing and alarmed looks, familiar with the significance. Neither of them had given a second's thought to externals; if Bobby hadn't had the wherewithal to keep track of what was going on in the background -

"I reckon the local reps of law 'n' order intend to throw a surprise party for the management 'n' I seriously doubt we want 'em to gatecrash this little private party with Sam lookin' like he's spent the better part o' the night shootin' up." The savvy Mr Singer now declared. "I think this discussion would be easier on the nerves and the feet iffen we tabled it back aroun' mah kitchen table – 'n' Sam can kill two birds with one stone on seein' if there's any way of findin' out when 'n' how our English Rose got herself freed from the 'hot house'."

Sam needed no second urging. He was aware that the longer he stood upright, the more he was swaying like an old tree in a gale. Carefully he moved forward and bent down to pick up his hoodie that Bela had apparently simply yanked off and thrown on the floor. As he did so, something fluttered off the sole of his boot.

"What's that?" Dean caught the movement.

Gritting his teeth against the reaction of his stomach, Sam bent again and picked up a very small white triangle, made from a sort of crinkly paper-but-not-material, holding it up to see it better. The two outer edges were perfectly straight, but the inner edge was raggedly torn. In the corner were two sky-blue letters in fancy script: '_Th_'and underneath in the same font, a capital '_B'_. There was also a tiny repeating pattern round the edge – a tiny sky blue dot with concave lines interlinking.

Dean took it and squinted in a never-to-be-admitted near-sighted way at the edging motif. "Do these…look like…I dunno, miniature stylised birds to anyone else?"

"Birds?" Sam also peered at the edging. "Blue birds?"

He and Dean got it instantly. "_Bluebirds_."

"This is the _Hill Valley_ motel." Sam said excitedly.

"Which is about tah be raided by the cops, when you two have finished!" snapped Bobby. "And I can name _three_ Bluebird Motels all within fifty miles of here off the top o' mah head right now. Stow it so we can shag ass back to my place. C'mon, move it."

Continued in Chapter 7…

_© The Cat's Whiskers_


	7. Chapter 7

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**ROLLING STONES **

**Chapter 7**

Automatically Sam followed Dean to the Impala, parked beside the Camaro he had borrowed from Bobby to come down here, and Castiel had the sense, or at least sufficient instinct for self-preservation, to follow Bobby to the Camaro.

Sam didn't even think about the keys until he had just got in the Impala's passenger side but then Bobby started the Camaro, so presumably must have picked up the keys from wherever when he, Dean and Castiel got inside the motel room and found him drooling on the floor. He had a vague memory of going into the room and dropping the keys next to the TV, but it was all a bit scrambled up.

He slumped slightly in weary relief as he sank onto the passenger section of the front seat that contoured his body, shaped by his customary long hours of 'shotgun' sitting. He knew he'd been 'lucky' that Bela hadn't, unintentionally or otherwise, fractured his skull or bludgeoned him to death rather than dealt him a 'mild concussion'; still he felt nauseated and clammy and his headache was excruciating. He was grateful it was only an hour's drive back to Bobby's – only half that with Dean behind the wheel when they cleared the city limits and inconvenient state troopers and he could apply a more leaden foot to the gas – and equally grateful it _was_ Dean behind the wheel. Sam was under no illusions about the state he was in – even if he had miraculously evaded the sheriff's raid on the motel he would have ended upside down in a ditch in the first hundred yards the way he was feeling.

Both cars were parked right at the far end of the parking lot and the two old growlers eased out and away from the motel with the Impala in the lead as inconspicuously as possible – at the end of the street the light was on red and as the Impala waited sedately at the intersection with the Camaro on it's rear fender there came the sudden short wail of sirens from behind them and Crown Victoria cruisers could be glimpsed in the rear view mirror blocking the exit slip onto the road.

They'd evaded by barely thirty seconds…and it was time to stop procrastinating. He'd gone down the "not talking to Dean about stuff" route and that had turned out really well, hadn't it – _yeah, Samuel, you brought on Armageddon_! So…

"I'm sorry, Dean." He apologised for probably the millionth time with weary despondency.

"You couldn't have known Bela was back -"

"I don't mean about tonight. Not even close. I mean…my whole pig-headed Denial right from the beginning," Sam corrected. "I was so wilfully blind, so selfishly stubborn in clinging to my wish that my powers were something that had been done _to me_ not something that I _was_, that if I just _tried_ hard enough I could get rid of them like throwing unwanted furniture in a dumpster. Some guy said, 'we don't see things the way they are, we see things the way _we _are' – and I was the original 'blind because he didn't _want _to see'."

"It wasn't _all_ your fault, Sam…"

"Then whose was it? I was so desperate _not _to be Yellow-Eyes' last-puppet-standing that I just ignored _everything_ you and Dad taught me. I _knew_ Jake Tulley was a soldier, I _knew_ he'd just been teleported from Afghanistan and I _knew_ he wouldn't be down on the ground long. If I'd taken him out – or at least neutralised him properly when I had the chance - then he'd never have skewered me; _you_ wouldn't have made that deal; _none_ of the seals would have been broken and _you _wouldn't have ended up being forced into becoming the angels' patsy either. Lillith, and Ruby, would still be toasting their heels in the pit –"

"And _Dad_ would still have been trapped down there as well." Dean cut in on the recounting of Sam's personal failures. "For one month topside that equalled a _decade_ down there after another month topside and so on. Okay, Dad never got off Alistair's rack for a year - a hundred years – but what about two hundred, or three? _Eventually_, Dad would've either broken the first seal – or become a demon we had to hunt." He hated Sam's distraught face, and said softly, "Okay, you've made some mistakes, but you had some help, Sammy."

Sam swallowed, because this was it, _the _admission: the ultimate confession of the pathetic miserable screw-up that was Sam Winchester. But he owed it to Dean – he owed a great deal more to Dean, who had forgiven him for _unleashing Satan on the world_, for crying out loud.

"But I _didn't_ have help, Dean, that's the problem."

He saw the muscles clench in Dean's jaw as his brother made to speak and he hurried on because if he didn't he'd lose what little nerve he had. "You ever hear that old actors' saying that 'no punch-line, no matter great, will ever be as funny as a perfectly timed pause'?"

"_No._" Dean's snap indicated his complete impatience with this apparent _non sequitur_.

"That was her MO," Sam with weary self-contempt. "If you follow me, Ruby let what she _didn't _say do the talking."

"She still manipulated you –"

"But she didn't, she just let me manipulate _myself_. Sat there and let her significant silence fill the room whenever I went off on a rant – and I ranted plenty, most of it self-pitying 'why me' whining. Yes, Ruby did trick me into breaking the final seal. But…when me and you went after Lillith the first time, when you trapped her blonde host and stole the knife…Ruby got mad and yelled that she'd never lied to us – and _that was true_." Sam looked down at his fingers, the nails bitten to the quick from stress and distress. "Ruby never lied to me because she never _had to_. I'll admit, I liked the sex, more than that, I liked sex _with Ruby_, and it was great long before any blood-sucking came into the picture –"

"_Getting_ the picture!" warned Dean. "Also getting close to needing to gouge out my mind's eye."

"Sorry. What I'm trying to say is that Ruby never ever pretended – to either of us - that her goal was anything _other _than or _more _than killing Lillith. While you were…dead…I was happy enough to be getting it on with Ruby regularly, and happy enough to be getting psychically honed and toned, but I still didn't care _enough_ to be interested in the _back story_, to be interested in _why, _so I never pushed and pressed her to 'fess up any motives for her 'Death-to-Lillith' obsession. After the fight in Santa Fe, when I first…y'know…she even tried to warn me, in a way…"*

Dean spared a second from the road to cast Sam an incredulous glance; 'regrouping' at Bobby's after the Devil had taken off for parts unknown, Sam had told Dean the basics of how his and Ruby's furious fight in Santa Fe just before Dean's resurrection had ended up as the start of his little 'haemo habit', but hadn't gotten in great detail because the talk had veered onto the tangential topic of cell voicemail and they'd mutually discovered the 'that's-not-what-I-said/heard' trickery.

"I know, but…she did. I asked her if I'd be strong enough to kill Lillith _without_ the blood and she told me 'yes'. That was the truth."

Sam waited a moment as Dean's jaw clenched tightly again, but Dean didn't speak; it was hardly rocket science to realise that it would have been far better for Ruby's plan for her to have tried to convince Sam that he would _never _be strong enough to take out Lillith if he _didn't _keep on the unexpected diet of Ruby red. What would she have done if Sam had had the actual good sense to grasp the subtext of her ambivalent 'yes, but' response and refused to imbibe her blood again?

"The other psychics were able to pull off similar stuff far faster than me without needing it, and I _knew_ it – I just wouldn't _admit_ it to myself." Sam said with bitter self-recrimination. "Hell, Ruby even said to me, right there and then: 'Sam, the main problem you have is that you're fighting _you_.' She told me that drinking her blood was dangerous and unpredictable, and made _me _make the choice. I just didn't – wouldn't – listen to her. I used her blood as an excuse to rationalise my fantasy that when I killed Lillith it would somehow burn all my powers out of me and I'd be a real little boy – a normal person." Sam managed to stop himself shaking his head, else he _would _throw up in Dean's baby and his brother _would _kill him. "Believe me, more than anything else right now I would love to blame it all on Ruby - wholesale and period. But I can't, because I did it to myself."

One second stretched into two, then three, then four as Dean continued to drive with his attention fixed on the road as if he were negotiating an obstacle course of drunken sheep not a straight, clear, unimpeded highway.

Then still without looking at his brother Dean said into the suffocating confines of the car, "Not all of it, Sam. When I said you had help, I didn't mean Ruby. I meant _me_."

Continued in Chapter 8…

_© The Cat's Whiskers_

* author's Note: please see my story _Give and Take, _Chapter 8.


	8. Chapter 8

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**ROLLING STONES **

**Chapter 8**

"Dean, _you _were the one who made the deal _because_ of _me_. You were the one who was killed because of me!" Sam protested. "I was there, Dean. I was so pathetic and so in denial that I refused to face the truth even when my _brother_ was being mauled by Hellhounds right in front of me! All I did was whimper and whine when I should have incinerated the lot of them!"

"Yeah, I know – I was there too. I also know that maybe _I _could have _saved myself_ if I hadn't been a raging bigot."

Sam had no idea where Dean was coming from; the first girl Dean had ever developed genuine feelings for, Cassie Robinson, was a stunningly beautiful mulatto. Sam had noticed her by-line recently in a prominent LA newspaper; she had followed her father into journalism and had a clear talent that would take her far. Not that Sam had any fondness for her – he had recognised that hard edge to her personality, an inherent streak of self-centredness even after Dean and Sam had saved her life. Then there had been Viktor Henrickson and Gordon Walker – opposite ends of the spectrum in many ways, but both had caused Dean and Sam immense problems. Yet Dean had never evinced the slightest indication that part of his 'issues' with either man had been the colour of their skin. As far as Dean was concerned, the world was divided up into only two kinds of human beings, good ones and bad ones. Good ones he'd go to the wire to help, bad ones he opened up a giant can of whup-ass on. Never did colour, creed, nationality, religion, age, sex, weight or wealth factor in.

Dean concentrated far too much on taking the exit ramp and then the right turn. "Back when we saved Leonora from Gordon Walker, I kept trying to convince myself that Dad would have got it, that he would've understood that Gordon was the _bad guy_…but I didn't believe me," Dean blew out a breath, "because there was a part of me that _agreed _with Gordon that Leonora had to be killed anyway for _no other reason_ than because she _wasn't human_."

"Dad had good reason for how he felt, so did you, Dean." Sam pointed out, having never realised how much inner turmoil some of their hunts had clearly caused Dean, who had always maintained the blasé attitude of 'been there, done that, bled all over the T-shirt, next!'

"Dad did have good reason to hate and hunt creatures because they were _evil_. He had no right to hate and hunt creatures just because they were _different_. But I wouldn't admit my own prejudice even to myself, until I was forced to by a pair of damn _ghouls_ of all things - They were _right_ about Dad…and poor Adam and his mom paid the price."

"I don't understand?" Sam admitted; not wanting to think about the two creatures – if they hadn't sucked down half his blood volume he would never have been so desperate for replenishment as to have attacked the demoness in front of Dean and Castiel and there would never have been any need for Dean to find out – _which is exactly the sort of self-deception that got me in trouble in the first place, stupid!_

Although, truth be told, as with mom, he only rarely thought of the half-brother he'd also never got the chance to know, and not for the nicest of reasons. Sure, in Windom a big part of him had been enthused over the chance to claim 'big brother status'. But a _larger_ part of Sam was quite happy, thank you very much, to keep his 'definitive article' crown of being _the _brother of Dean Winchester, rather than merely _a _brother of Dean Winchester.

It was a big factor in his ongoing jealousy over the tentative 'Gibson & Glover in the first Lethal Weapon movie' deal Sean seemed to have going on with Castiel. Although of course the angel _had_ helped Sam out big-time, by not merely 'shooting himself in the foot' so much as blasting off both feet with an elephant gun - metaphorically speaking. Sam wasn't exactly advertising his research, but his meandering reading of his way through Bobby's impressive collection of books and even some scrolls of lore whilst he 'recovered' and they 'regrouped' wasn't as idle or aimless as it looked. If he could find some way to oust Castiel in a way that wouldn't hurt Jimmy Novak, so the poor guy could return to his wife and daughter, then Castiel was going to find himself abruptly kicked back to harp & halo land.

"Look, Gordon Walker was the extreme at the end of the spectrum, him and that nutjob sidekick who grabbed you back after Bela swiped the rabbit's foot. But a lot of hunters weren't that far behind him…like Dad, and like _me_. Gordon Walker would have hunted down and murdered Jimmy and his wife and kid not _despite _the fact that Jimmy was possessed by an angel but _because _he was possessed by an angel…"

Sam shivered, remembering the dead hunter's vicious hatred of Sam himself, but what had made Walker truly terrifying was his insanity – his zealous lunacy. _No man commits such terrible atrocities as one who is convinced he is doing the right thing, which is why the Road to Hell is paved with Good intentions._ He had no idea where he'd seen the quote now. There had been no reasoning with that implacability; like the pun went, the only place completely robbery-proof was a closed mind.

"…Dad wasn't that far gone, but he definitely had the leanings. I mean, his closest friends in the world were Bobby, Caleb, Jim, Jefferson and _Missouri Moseley_. Do you really believe it's a coincidence that Missouri-the-psychic was the one he never let us know about? Even Bobby, sometimes…"

"You mean Pamela?"

Dean winced at the dead woman's name. "Yeah…I do mean Pamela. I don't think Bobby even realised it himself but…I think he kept talking her back into helping us because subconsciously he thought she was _more _expendable than us because being psychic made her _less_, and I'm sure she suspected as much. _You _were the one who told me, the first time we ever crossed paths with Gordon, 'we don't hunt things because they're supernatural, Dean, we hunt things because they're _evil_.' But I just swallowed Dad's attitude that supernatural equalled bad, no matter what, until we ran into the ghouls."

"And the ghouls weren't bad? They murdered our half-brother and at least two other people, brutally!"

"I know that!" Dean shifted in his seat, a clear indication the already grim conversation was about to get more unhappy. "After I caught you with Ruby…exorcising that demon from that guy, and I went off at you…when I said how far you'd gone off the reservation, how far…" Dean stopped.

"How far from human. You said you wanted to hunt me." Sam couldn't stop the words coming out, or the bitterness and hurt with which they were said; Dean had devastated him with those words – and only made him _more _terrified of Dean finding out that he was drinking Ruby's blood. The visionary gifts of Chuck Shirley had freaked Dean out, but it was nothing to what they'd done to Sam when he realised what Chuck had to have seen, had to _know_.

"Yeah…and I was an asshole." Dean admitted bluntly. "I was so prejudiced I actually told myself that using the knife - even though it killed the host - was better than you sending the fugly back to the pit and leaving the poor meat suit battered but still breathing."

Sam's stomach twisted in a knot…._RN Sydney McKellan, come on down…_Though ruthlessly hog-tying the woman and opening her veins, Ruby had not pressurised Sam to kill her – in fact it had been Ruby's impatient and irritated, "_'aren't you done yet?_'" that had made him realise he'd drunk so much of the nurse's demon-tainted blood in his paranoia to be strong enough to kill Lillith that she was on the verge of dying from blood-loss.

Peculiarly enough, Ruby had made no objection to Sam using some of his precious 'whammy' to kill the demon trying to hide in Nurse McKellan's subconscious; in fact, a she'd had the oddest expression on her face when Sam hit on the idea of dumping her on the roadside verge and making an anonymous 9-1-1 call from the payphone.

After he'd come out of his initial post-seal-breaking '_I unleashed Satan on the world!' _fugue state, Bobby had been able to find out that the nurse was making a slow but predicted full recovery with her husband by her bedside. She also, without doubt mercifully, had fairly extensive amnesia and since she hadn't been raped, the cops had little forensic evidence to go on and not the same pressure to catch the 'perps', and since the majority of attacker fingerprints/DNA had come from Ruby, now as dead as her boss, he was probably safe. He tuned back in as he heard Dean say Adam's name.

"…after I found Adam's body and his mom, when I was sneaking in the house, I heard what the ghouls were saying, and it was true. So the ghoul who was their, I dunno, daddy-mom or whatever, cracked coffins and ate corpses, which is, okay, gross, but it wasn't maiming or murdering anyone and not that far from what hunters do. I mean, given all the crap some of these politicians are trying feed us about global warming, ghouls are probably the most eco-friendly supernatural sons of bitches around – you can't get more efficient organic recycling than that."

For a moment, Sam was almost astonished, but only for a moment, because he knew Dean inside out. Whilst Dean perpetually acted as if the only three notions ever to concern his brain cells were, _can I kill it, eat it or have sex with?_ (not always in that order), in reality he was extremely smart, as he had let slip to good old _I-am-the-prophet-Chuck_ with that crack about _"'Slaughterhouse Five' Vonnegut or 'Cat's cradle' Vonnegut?'"_. Given that Dean had, quite literally, been to Hell and back and Kurt Vonnegut had also been famous for walking out of a bomb shelter into the hell of the firestorm of Dresden*, Sam suspected Dean 'got' Vonnegut in a way few other of the novelist's readers could appreciate.

What Sam did get right now was that talking like this about Dad, whom Dean had idolised, was tormenting Dean with guilt – even _thinking_ the things he was now telling Sam back when he'd first realised them would have made him feel he was 'betraying' John Winchester.

"Now you say it, it's so obvious," he said in soothing encouragement. "Well into the twentieth century the death rate was sky-high and ninety-nine out of every hundred folk on the planet were too poor to afford more than a shroud and a shallow grave – two feet down if they were lucky. Without ghoul clean-up crews humanity would probably have been wiped aeons ago by some Spanish Flu on steroids mega-virus."

"Yeah, I guess." Dean eased off the gas slightly as on this final stretch to Bobby's there was a particular state trooper who sometimes liked to conceal himself in a little patch of grass on a deceptively shallow bend. The last thing this fun-fest of a day needed to finish it off was for him to be pulled over by Mr Traffic Cop of the Year with Sam sat beside him looking as strung out as he had been in the panic room and with glaringly obvious 'evidence' like that bruise on his forearm left by Bela's hypodermic.

Long able to judge his speed without constantly checking the gauge, Dean went on, "The thing is, Dad went after the ghoul _because _it was a ghoul. Hating Hitler is okay because he _chose_ to do evil, monstrous things. Hating someone or something because of what it was _born_ is as stupid as hating yellow-furred Labradors because they're yellow-furred not brown or black. And when he killed the ghoul…"

Dean sucked in a loud breath and blew it out again. "I listened to them call Dad the monster and the epiphany hit me like that truck did the Impala. Dad was directly responsible for getting his _youngest_ son killed. The ghoul wasn't doing any harm; if it's offspring hadn't been left to fend for themselves they would never have attacked living people and would never have sought revenge for their 'sire's' death. Adam would have still be a pre-med biology major with his nice life and girlfriend. They were right…and I _hated _them for that just like I _hated_ Leonora for being the one that needed saving, instead of being a nice, neat, tidy monster to gank and forget about. Why d'y'think I went postal on Adam-ghoul's ass with that poker?"

_I was kinda hoping it was because you were a bit angry at the bastards brutally torturing your kid brother_…Sam, recognising that the question was rhetorical, remained silent.

"What I'm trying to say here is that you may have pulled the trigger, Sammy, but by stuffing me full his bigotry, Dad loaded the gun. Indirectly _he_ is responsible for starting this whole mess - being affected by his prejudice indirectly got _me _killed and sent to the pit in the first place, because when I saw you exorcise that demon, even after Castiel told me I had to stop you, I realised that - and I can't believe I'm actually saying this – I realised that, at least in the beginning – _Ruby's plan probably would have worked_."

Continued in Chapter 9…

_© The Cat's Whiskers_

* **Author's Note:**

Kurt Vonnegut Jr (1922-2007) was a 4th generation German-American born to prosperous parents. He joined the US Army whilst at Cornell University, and was away fighting in Europe (WWII) when his mother Edith (née Lieber) committed suicide on 14th May 1944, Mother's Day in the USA. In December 1944, Vonnegut and some of his battalion (106th Infantry Division) were captured by regular German troops and were transported to Dresden as PoWs, where Vonnegut became leader of the prisoners by virtue of his German language skills. In February 1945, Vonnegut and other American PoWs were being held in an underground butchery meat locker in Dresden, which was Slaughterhouse Five (the name of his famous novel).

Leaving, or escaping, Slaughterhouse Five on 15th February 1945, Vonnegut emerged into the "firestorm of Dresden", when the very air within the city itself had become a huge inferno, burning anything and everything within its path. The firestorm was caused by Allied Bombers, mostly British and American, dropping 4000 tons of high-explosive and incendiary bombs on the city in an attempt to cripple the supply lines and Nazi industrial complexes deliberately sited there by the Third Reich. In fact the raid failed because the bomber crews were given poor navigational aids and their targets were largely unscathed. (The same thing had happened to the Japanese in 1941 when they bombed Pearl Harbour; the raid caused none of the intended damage to Oahu's industrial sites/naval/aerial stockyards). Instead, over 13 square miles of the most beautiful city in modern Europe were destroyed, and between 25-40,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the inferno.

Dresden, and news of his mother's suicide, affected Vonnegut deeply as did later tragedy in his life; a tendency towards insanity was at least partially hereditary in the Lieber family – Vonnegut seriously considered it more than once, and his only son Mark Vonnegut, also an author, wrote an autobiography recounting his recovery from a psychotic breakdown in the 1960s.

Other issues also affected Vonnegut's mental stability and that of his son. He had an older brother, Bernard (who discovered 'cloud seeding' with silver iodide could precipitate rain in drought-stricken areas) and a sister, Alice. From the beginning of September 1958, Alice was dying of cancer in a New York hospital whilst her distraught husband James Carmalt Adams juggled his job and caring for their four sons, James Jr, Steven, Kurt and Peter, who was only a small baby at the time. On Monday morning 15th September, James C. Adams was one of 48 people killed in the Newark Bay rail crash when his commuter train derailed into the bay.

Alice's family decided to hide the news and let Alice die in the belief her husband and sons were 'coping', but the following day a patient able to walk unwittingly gave her a copy of the _New York Daily News_, which listed the names of the fatalities. The shock was too much and she died a day later on Wednesday 17th September. To their credit, Kurt and his first wife Jane Marie Cox, despite having three children of their own – Edith, Nanette and Mark - promptly took in and later adopted James Jr, Kurt and Steven, whilst baby Peter Adams, for unknown reasons, was sent and brought up by Kurt's first cousin in Alabama. However, Jane and Vonnegut separated in 1970 (he remarried Jill Krementz in 1979, with whom he adopted a third daughter, Lily); whatever the cause of their marriage breakdown, having to cope with three traumatised, grief-stricken boys who had lost both parents and effectively their baby brother in the space of 48 hours had a detrimental affect on both Kurt and Mark Vonnegut's mental health.

Especially from the 1990s onwards both far-right racist groups and far-left Marxist liberal groups have pushed a revisionist approach blanket-labelling British Bomber Command and the bombing of Dresden as a "war crime". However, that these claims not only have no basis but are in fact quite offensive was made clear by the historical fact that Britain did not _instigate _the aerial bombing of Germany, either in WWII or WWI, when Kaiser Wilhelm I sent Zeppelins to bomb the Southern English Coast. On 7 September 1940, the Nazis launched the _Blitzkrieg_ against Britain – for 57 consecutive days they bombed London, leading to the famous photograph of St. Paul's wreathed in flames, and the revival of the doggerel "London's Burning!" (It was the 3rd Great Fire of London, the first being in 1212, with 6,000 dead, the second in 1666, with 2,000+ dead).

From 1940-1943 they also launched bombing raids against nearly a dozen cities including Liverpool, Sheffield, Manchester, Hull, and, in 1941 particularly, Coventry, where the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel was destroyed. Ironically, this cathedral was just around the corner from where **Rogue Events** held the first UK **Supernatural/Smallville** convention (attended by Jason Mann, Jensen Ackles and Alona Tal, amongst others) in 2007.

I attended both the city and convention as part of research on an article on Sir Patrick Moore (b.1923) the eccentric monocle-wearing astronomer and author best knowing for presenting _The Sky at Night_ for 60+ years. Allegedly, during the bombing of Coventry, a young Army auxiliary nurse named Lorna was killed outright when a bomb hit her ambulance. She was the fiancée of Sir Patrick. Over 60 years after her death, a callous journalist asked him if he 'ever thought about' his wartime sweetheart. Hesitating long enough to impress the crassness and insensitivity of the question upon the journalist, he admitted that sometimes he went a 'whole half hour' without thinking of her. One can only speculate on how extraordinary a young woman she must have been, for him to be so grief-stricken over her death he could hardly bear to speak of her 60 years later.

Coventry is also significant in that it is only luck that we do not speak of the "firestorm of Coventry" from 1941 instead of Dresden in 1945. Entirely due to accident, not any humanitarian aspect, the way the Germans bombed the city meant there was a sufficient time lag between each bombardment for the air not to ignite so a firestorm did not happen. The final death toll of the Nazis bombing of England from 1940-1943 was 43,000 people, half in London alone. As an aside, my own grandparent suffered minor injuries as a result of the bombing of Sheffield "which burned from horizon to horizon". Just a dozen yards' closer bomb impact would have resulted in a dead child who never had my parent, and therefore never me (whether some may conclude that is a pity is a question I shall not explore!)


	9. Chapter 9

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**ROLLING STONES **

**Chapter 9**

For a moment Sam didn't get it and then he demanded incredulously, "Dean, you were the only one who realised she might be working to her own agenda – not even Anna and Mr Know-it-all Chuck Shirley realised! _You _seriously believe that in the beginning Ruby was on the _level_?!"

"Dude, I have no clue!" Dean shot back. "But just _think for a second_ about what would have happened if I'd gotten on board back when Ruby was blonde with her claim that you could kill Lillith if you let her hone and tone your mental whammy."

"You think I could have done it? Really, that I could have _killed _Lillith back when your deal came due?" Sam swallowed back a bitter laugh as he recognised the bubbling hysteria that would have burst out – there was a time – just a few days ago in fact, when he would have almost sold his own soul for Dean to grant him such validation. Now it just twisted that phantom knife of guilt and despair deeper inside him.

"I guess maybe…look, okay, no I don't think you could have _killed _Lillith." Dean rushed on, "But you didn't _need_ to, that was the whole point. Think about it – once your mental muscle was lean and mean…all you needed to do was distract Lillith, or be able to hold her still in one spot for just a few _seconds_ –"

Sam was a quick study, "That's all that would have been needed to do a Jake Tulley on Lillith's spine with our favourite magic knife."

"Yahtzee! Imagine Masterpiece Theatre: Lillith's dead, so the contract is void and the deal is nullified – I'm alive and gorgeous as ever, so not in hell, so since Dad's already lit out for wherever he is now, there's nobody in the pit to break the first seal. The demons are stuck down there, the angels are stuck up in the clouds where they should never be allowed down from – and a couple called Jimmy and Amelia Novak get to live out their lives as happy suburbanite nonentities. Castiel is _not _the one Jimmy should hate; _I_ turned his life into a train wreck. Not to mention poor schmuck-Chuck. No deal, no seals - no seals and he got to live a nice life getting by as a comic book writer instead of being driven to slow suicide by Scotch courtesy of brain-searing visions."

Sam didn't interrupt Dean's self-blaming diatribe because he couldn't. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Ruby with her eyes glowing like polished black jade in euphoric excitement as she cried out "'_I'm awesome!_'" before his shocked and appalled face. His dreams were fragmented, tortured reruns of everything she'd said and done, blonde or brunette, forensically picked apart to see all the places where he'd let his own arrogance and stupidity entangle him deeper into her – into Lillith's – master plan. Worse were the erotic memories, because despite everything he _still _wanted Ruby; it had been one of the hang-ups he wouldn't admit to himself – that he had _always _wanted _Ruby_, not as a side-effect of an attraction to the _host_. And then they invariably segued into nightmares of Jess – first she smiled at him, then she frowned and looked sad – then her face became angry and disgusted and nightly she told him he was a monster and a thing and it was all his fault she was dead.

The notion that at some point Ruby had _really _been in their 'corner' had never occurred to him, but then neither had the scenario Dean just described. "You really think we could have done it?"

"Don't you?"

Sam got a funny feeling in his stomach as he thought about that huge 'what if', because whilst Lillith had had a lot of power, thinking-on-her-feet had not been her forte. After her hellhounds killed Dean and she'd tried to obliterate Sam, his immunity had panicked her and she'd run. If Sam _had _managed to pin in her one spot, even for as little as two seconds, between Dean menacing her - with the colt or without it - and Ruby sliding that knife in, Lillith would never have been able to react to the 'triple threat' in time - If only Dean hadn't been so freaked-out about Sam being seen as a freak, a stupendous amount of misery could have been avoided. _And isn't hindsight a wonderful thing, Mr Judgemental? _he asked himself, recognising that last thought as being pure John Winchester black-white-no-grey-allowed attitude, which had gone a _loooong _way to getting them in this mess in the first place, as he was as guilty as Dean of it.

"…Maybe at some point Ruby finally realised she was _never_ going to get past my prejudice about absolutely no psychic stuff and decided to actually throw in with Lillith instead of just pretending she was. It wasn't exactly rocket science to work out we were gonna get our asses kicked by Lillith even _with _the knife, especially as my 'we-got-Colt's-colt-don't-need-you-Ruby' mantra went down the toilet pan the instant Bela stole it." Dean said wearily, turning finally into Bobby's auto junkyard, where two of his Rottweillers raised their heads from the hoods of rusting trucks as they passed.

"You did what you thought was best," Sam told Dean, knowing how little solace it was worth. "That's all you can do."

Dean gave a derisive snort as he killed the engine, allowing the Camaro to pull past and round the side of the house. "I just…I guess what I mean is you can ease up on the self-flagellation, Sam…or at least move over and hand me a scourge." He made a noise that the foolish might mistake for a laugh. "I can't even claim any high ground over you getting it on with Ruby -"

"Why not? At least you picked the _right_ side of the whole Upstairs/Downstairs deal – at least Anna was an _angel_." Sam pointed out. "I won't lie and say it was bad because it wasn't; sex with Ruby – it was great, all the time, but she was a _demon_."

"And that's how I felt with Anna." Dean confessed, so quietly that for a second Sam struggled to hear him. "When she decided it was probably gonna be her last night alive and picked me for a little carnal fun it was…important; special. She was the only girl – _woman _– I've ever actually _connected _with besides…"

Lisa Braeden, the beautiful elephant in the corner of Dean's sex life. Sam had had the epiphany over why Dean's 'type' of lissom, sassy brunettes went against the womaniser norm of pneumatic airhead blondes about two seconds after laying eyes on Lisa. He strongly suspected that Dean's promiscuity was down to his brother pretending each liaison was Lisa, a self-deceit impossible to maintain for more than a single encounter.

"…but even so there was a part of me that was freaked out and _not_ in a reverent, 'I can't believe this awesome and powerful _creature_ has chosen no-account me to get happy with' way. It was an 'I can't believe I'm having sex with a _creature_' way. Afterwards, when Uriel and Castiel showed their _true_ just-as-bad-as-the-demons colours, it was the first time I looked at myself in the mirror and saw Gordon Walker looking back at me."

Sam didn't know what to say; Dean's face was tired, his posture weary as he opened his door and got out the car as stiffly as if he were ninety and riddled with 'rheumatics'. But he had been like that ever since he stepped into that motel room last September and let Sam hug his ribs to cracking point. Dean had been changed by his torture by Alistair and his torture of others _with _Alistair in the pit as much as Sam had been changed by throwing in with Ruby and drinking her blood.

_I don't know if I've been changed for the better, but I know I've been changed for good._ Again he couldn't remember where he'd heard the line. What he did know was that this past year he and Dean had almost seemed to be locked into some sort of mutually-assured destruction pact which both of them had somehow survived; now they needed to find their way back to each other across an emotional minefield that was booby-trapped up the yin-yang. Somehow they had to become brothers again in the ways that really mattered – because the alternative was unimaginable to contemplate…

"Don't you worry, Sam, you jes' sit there all quiet like and I'll bring out your soup on a nice tray with a napkin all proper."

Nobody could do sarcasm quite like Dean – but Bobby came close second, especially as he loomed at the passenger side of the Impala with his arms folded. Momentarily Sam wondered if Dean's sardonic mouth had rubbed off on Bobby or if a lifetime of being left frequently in the care of John's appropriately initialled friend BS when they were kids had caused Bobby's attitude to influence Dean. He got out of the car, aware he would be wearing the soup if he riled Bobby.

Continued in Chapter 10…

_© The Cat's Whiskers_


	10. Chapter 10

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**ROLLING STONES **

**Chapter 10**

Twenty minutes later, as he sat his butt gratefully down on the sturdy chair, Sam actually felt passably human again. Mainly because Bobby always retained a supply of 'the good drugs' – prescription-only level meds that actually worked; unlike over-the-counter pills that were mostly a combo of good advertising, wishful thinking and the placebo effect, these were the 'appliance of chemical science' and it showed.

Sam had Gregory House-style knocked back a handful of large round somethings and within two minutes the invisible son-of-a-bitch whaling on his head with a baseball bat had been kicked into the long grass. Bobby could also source _very _effective medicines as he was held in high regard by a lot of Native American tribes, who had been 'in the life' centuries before 'paleface' showed up and who had come up with some very useful ways to patch up and medicate battered hunters. Whatever he'd got or wherever from, it was great stuff.

For the moment he ignored the laptop powering up on the side with that tiny but all-important triangle of motel napkin on the keyboard as he drew the bowl of tomato soup towards him, grateful Bobby had not made a more solid dinner; he knew how little his stomach could handle right now. Not that the soup was a problem – unlike John 'could barely work a toaster' and Dean 'Do you deliver?' Winchester, Bobby Singer was a very good cook – as good as their honorary grandfather Pastor Jim had been. His rabbit stew, poke salad, lasagne and roast chicken were the stuff of gastronomic bliss.

As always, however, they ate around the living room table, not in the kitchen, because on the kitchen wall next to the bank of 'Alphabet Soup' labelled phones – FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, CDC, et cetera - was a very small, black, heavy-based skillet that Bobby used to use to satisfy Sam – and Dean's – clamour for their favourite spinach bacon dumplings. Considering it the only way to get greenery in the pair of them, Bobby had never objected. But the dish – spinach dumplings cooked with bacon, mushrooms, onions and cream and served in that little black skillet - had been an Austrian recipe loved by their friend, the Bavarian-descended hunter Caleb Fischer, murdered over three years ago now by Azazel's daughter in the body of poor Meg Masters. Bobby never made it now, and even if he had Sam knew he wouldn't have been able to eat it.

He didn't care that his stomach rumbled – only glad it was prepared to tolerate food at all. Despite quickly cleaning his teeth and swilling with water once inside the house, his mouth still had that horrible taste. He even let Castiel reach out and take the largest chunk of the fresh loaf Bobby had managed to produce as well.

Only once, when Bobby had rustled up some food for his traumatised houseguests after the Devil cleared off for, well – warmer? – climes, had Castiel made the mistake of informing Bobby that "'I have no need to eat'". With his usual forthrightness, Bobby had promptly responded, "'I don't give a rat's ass what _you _need, you treacherous, cowardly celestial conman, but I _know_ that Jimmy Novak would dearly love to sink his teeth into this burger, so sit down, shut up, and let _him _have some dinner.'" Ever since, Castiel had eaten small amounts of a meal, and now even frequently drank black coffee.

Sam suspected it was part of the angel's apparently ongoing attempts to appease his host, Jimmy Novak. Castiel's distress had certainly been genuine back at the motel when he had admitted that Jimmy held him in contempt and despised him, and Sam discovered within himself a surprising amount of sympathy for the angel.

Oh, not that he wouldn't send Castiel on a one-way trip literally back up where the air was rare if it ever came to it and Jimmy would be safe and free to return to his family, but Sam knew what it was like to be deceived, misled and tricked by someone you trusted implicitly – not Ruby, but his Dad. In their little post-Lucifer conversation, Chuck Shirley had told Sam that effectively Zachariah had betrayed his whole garrison, and in some cases was even responsible for the deaths of several of his subordinate angels and their human hosts who were unaware that their 'line manager' _wanted _all the seals to fall and so smooth, middle-management Zach had sent no back up or carefully left out pertinent snippets of information – such as allowing Uriel to run amok, knowing full well the angel had gone Dark Side.

Bobby laid down his own spoon when he'd watched Sam take several appreciative mouthfuls of his special tomato soup – which was made with nothing but tomatoes, cream, herbs, and maybe a splash or ten of red wine – and get some colour back into his cheeks, and Dean likewise, who had also thankfully snapped out of that 'thousand-yard-stare'. Bobby didn't know exactly what had been said during the obviously 'heavy' exchange that had occurred between the brothers in the car on the way back here, but he could hazard a fair few educated guesses.

Damn, but he wished John was back, just so he could kick his ass into next Tuesday, buddy or no buddy. Yes, John had done his best, and yes, he'd done much better than a lot of waste-of-space fathers too, including Robert Singer's own less-than-stellar father, but he'd never conquered his biggest failing – sheer pig-headed obstinacy. Unfortunately it was the one character trait _both_ his boys had inherited in spades – or rather the elder two. It had also got all _three_ of John's sons _killed _at one time or another, and unfortunately for the youngest, Adam 'Milligan', that death had ended up being _permanent_.

All because John was so stubbornly determined to have a 'normal' family again he had refused to see the dangers of what could happen – and had – if he were prevented from protecting his woman and his kid for some reason; oh, say, on account of being _dead_.

Even if John hadn't wanted Dean and Sam to know about their half-brother, he should have let another _hunter_ know, to keep an eye on them; even if John had reckoned, quite rightly, that Bobby's sense of guilt would eventually make him blab to the boys about 'what's down in Windom', there were other candidates. For instance, 'Jefferson' had always been a strange 'n' contrary cuss from when Bobby first met him, three aliases before; he always picked '_dead presidents_' for his _nom de plume du jour_, presumably some private joke, having been Harding, Grover and Wilson.

Eccentric fake name habit or not, Bobby had no doubt the Olympic Grump would have protected Adam _and _his mother far beyond any diffident 'would you mind occasionally dropping by' request John had made. Although maybe John _had _– Jim had always had the knack of getting John to see things straight, probably on account of being an honourably discharged former Marine chaplain. If so, like all true friends, Jim had taken the secret to his grave – or, as a hunter, funeral pyre – when 'Meg Masters' murdered him.

But there was no mistaking the _impression_ John's deceit had left behind, particularly given that 'if you can't save Sam you'll have to kill him' crap he'd dared to lay on Dean. Oh, wouldn't he like to give Johnny a pasting for _that _bit of idiocy. Bobby knew a big part of the two brothers' issues with each other – 'issues', whoever came up with such a wishy-washy namby-pamby word to describe soul-destroying inner torment? – stemmed from John's idiotic actions. Bobby had seen the looks Dean often cast towards Sam – for over two years now – when he laughably thought his younger brother wasn't looking. And he had seen Sam's first upset, then despairing, then enraged reaction to those looks. Trouble was, he could see where Dean was coming from – a lifetime of indoctrination caused him to automatically freak out at the prospect his adored baby brother was _actually psychic_, and a lifetime of adoration of his 'superhero' big brother had left Sam completely devastated at Dean's manner towards him.

Eventually, even if it wasn't yet conscious consideration, Sam could reach the conclusion that John had hidden Adam's existence to protect him _from Sam_ as much as to prop up his own 'real-life fantasy' of being able to be 'Joe the Plumber' with an apple-pie 'wife' and an 'apple-pie' life. If Sam's over-active talent for self-doubt ever came up with _that_ notion, it might just be the last straw that would lead to him doing something stupid with a gun whilst he was stone-cold sober instead of drunk and suffering traumatic shock.

And then there was Dean, whose self-esteem was still pancake. Sure, if that Ruby hell-cat had achieved _anything_ remotely positive in putting both brothers through the emotional wringer this year, it had been to spark in Dean some small sense of ego. His 'I'm done with Sam' strop, short-lived though it had been, had been the first time ever Dean had not simply suppressed and repressed himself to accommodate the younger brother he would never voluntarily admit he adored.

Fortunately that idiot Zachariah had made the mistake of taking Dean's me-and-Sam-are-finished routine at face-value, and had in fact caused Dean to initiate the reconciliation Bobby had hoped for, but Bobby could see that, in very tiny ways, Dean was at least a little bit almost close to _valuing _himself and developing a sense of self-worth. That small but promising progress could be wiped out instantly if Dean's equally over-active talent for self-flagellation ever came up with the notion that John had hidden Adam's existence from _him _because he didn't believe Dean had the skill or talent to protect his youngest son. Given that Dean Winchester was most likely the greatest hunter who had ever lived, bar none, and was well along the path to being more legendary than his daddy, such an idea was ridiculous – but Dean wouldn't see it that way.

Which was why it was best that nobody round here had too much brooding time on their hands; so: "All right, fer right now I'm suspending the house rules that yer eat like people 'n' not like hogs at swill time."

The three men looked at him blankly and he sighed deeply at their obtuseness. "That means yer got permission to eat 'n' talk at the same time. Castiel. We got the edited highlights," Bobby wafted his spoon in the direction of the crammed bookshelves where there were several translations of the Holy Bible, "so lay on the Unabridged Version for us-all."

Castiel placed his spoon in his nearly empty bowl and for a moment looked at their trio of expectant faces as blankly as if he were a clothes-store mannequin, with an almost air of clueless 'what do you expect me to do now?' helplessness.

"Start at the beginning, go through the middle, and stop at the end," Sam facetiously advised, then wondered why he made the effort as Castiel continued to look blankly uncomprehending – he had clearly annihilated whatever 'humour' gene Jimmy had ever possessed…no pun intended.

But then Castiel pursed his lips and his eyes became unfocussed as he concentrated on some inner landscape only he – and possibly Jimmy Novak – could see.

"In the Beginning, there was God….and It was Alone, in the endless Void. Complete, eternal, One...and Only One."

Continued in Chapter 11…

_© The Cat's Whiskers_


	11. Chapter 11

_Disclaimer: No money being made, purely for enjoyment of fans, etc._

**ROLLING STONES **

**Chapter 11**

Okay, they weren't expecting quite so _much _Beginning, but neither Sam nor Dean needed the searing '_speak and die_' glare from Bobby – which they returned with some 'right-back-at-yah' attitude of their own; how many people, _ever_, were going to have the opportunity to get the real skinny on Life, The Universe and Everything, straight from the angel's mouth, as it were?

"The passing of aeons is incomprehensible – to angels as well as man." Castiel told them. "Until for reasons unknown and unknowable, God removed some of the energy from itself and made…Another."

There was a brief pause, as the three men treated _that _statement with the reverence it deserved.

"Self-aware, but separate. Two, instead of one…and It became They. Father and Son. In human language the Son is called Michael."

"Who Is Like God?" Automatically translating the name into English, Sam flushed as he inadvertently spoke aloud, then scowled at Castiel's undisguised and unflattering rapid surprised-blinking at this knowledge.

"Michael the Archangel, the Commander of the Army of Heaven Michael, Michael the Patron Saint of Demon Hunters Michael?" Dean rattled off.

"Yes. The Angel of Angels, who yet took a slave's form – "

"Michael was Christ?" Sam immediately caught the reference. "Wait. No, just carry on, we'll get there later." His brain was _already _hurting.

Flicking him a glance that may actually have been _approval_, Castiel said, "This Son was Beloved, and with him and for him, God made…wonders in the Void. A universe beyond comprehending; galaxies like clusters of ripe wine grapes, nebulas and stars and suns that were old before this world was even created. Indescribably beautiful…"

Dean cleared his throat as Castiel trailed off and stared into the middle distance with such a look of longing that even Sam had to swallow a sudden hard lump in his throat. "Yeah…diamonds sprinkled across black velvet. We get it."

"You 'get' nothing," Castiel snorted derisively – and with more animation than he'd ever displayed. "There is no such thing as 'space' and it is not black. What you call outer space is a…a…_sardine tin_ of wonders. Tell me what colour your brother's eyes are."

"Uh…b-blue," stumbled Dean, thrown by this left-field demand.

"No, they aren't. His eyes change colour several times a minute throughout every day and night, twenty-four seven, throughout his life. His eyes can range from cerulean to sapphire, silver to charcoal, periwinkle to slate and every shade in between. Everybody's eyes do." Castiel leaned back in his chair. "Even as trichromats most of you can see over ten million colours, and yet your human languages struggle to reach a hundred words for different colours."

"Tri-chro- never mind." Dean dismissed*. "So, space is an explosion in a paint factory."

Castiel actually smiled. "It is a riot of rainbows. There are stars that are cobalt and silver, nebulas that are scarlet and peach and suns of burnt sienna. There are colours beyond description."

"Castiel," Sam's voice had slightly more volume than he intended in his desire to bring the angel's attention to him. "Have you shown any of this…to _Jimmy_?"

Castiel's eyebrows drew together slightly. "No."

"It might make you and Jimmy to coexist more easily when he understands a little of how you lost _your '_family' as well."

Castiel regarded Sam silently with an unnerving intensity that wasn't made any easier by the astonished looks on Dean and Bobby's faces. Come on, how much of a heartless S.O.B. did they think he _was?_

"I am surprised by your concern for my state of mind." Castiel effectively answered _that_ question.

Sam shrugged, answering his brother's intense regard as much as Castiel. "It's not _your _state of mind, it's Jimmy's. I don't like you, I've never trusted you since you were willing to slaughter a thousand plus people for no good reason – no, Samhain wasn't good enough reason – " Sam interjected as Castiel opened his mouth automatically, " – and for tricking Dean into becoming effectively your slave I fully intend to find a way to kick your angelic ass, you deceitful bastard. _That being said_," he ploughed on as Castiel's eyes went from periwinkle to ice at that challenge, "I know what it's like to lose a brother…and to _feel _like you're losing your brother, no matter what you try. I think you understand _that _feeling all too well."

Dean's face bore an expression Sam couldn't quite decipher, and Bobby was, for the first time in forever, actually looking at Sam with something akin to respect, not that mingled pity/disappointment/anger usually stamped across his face and swirling in his eyes these past few months.

"You didn't tear Jimmy away from his family with spiteful glee. You had no choice, and if you and he are going to be stuck in the same body for at least the next couple of years, he needs to jettison the pity party and realise it's not all about him. Worse things have happened to equally as nice, decent people – at least his wife and child are alive and _reasonably_ safe – what about Bobby's wife? What about Isaac and Tamara Hayes' little girl? What about our half-brother and his mom?"

For a moment, Castiel looked like he had suddenly been struck by severe indigestion, which Sam guessed was the result of two sentient entities asserting themselves in the same physical brain, but then the angel shifted slightly in the chair and his posture relaxed a little. Castiel always carried himself – sitting, standing, talking - as if Jimmy's body were an ill-fitting cheap suit that would disintegrate if he took a deep breath. It was subtle, but it was there – for the first time _ever_ Castiel actually looked as if he _were_ the man sat before them, not some gun-waving carjacker who'd leapt into the driving seat and shoved Jimmy into the passenger seat of his own body before driving wildly away one-handed, careening Jimmy's body always within a whisker of disaster.

Castiel returned to the explanation at hand. "The Father found joy in the companionship of the Son, and took His energy once more and so made for his Son…brethren. By rank and station, angels and cherubim and seraphim. Every day was joy and delight and love. There was only unity and friendship – playing tag in gas giants, or skating around the rings of planets in a galaxy far, far away."

"Let's not give Lucas any more of a Messiah complex than he already has," Bobby interjected drolly, "so you had joy, you had fun, you had seasons in the sun, and if you pair don't quit eyeballing me like that I will whup both your asses into next week, 'cause I grew up in the era of real music. Get to the good stuff, Castiel."

Continued in Chapter 12…

_© The Cat's Whiskers_

Author's Notes:

NB 1 - Most humans are _trichromats_, from "tri" (three) and chromatic (from the Greek chromatikos, 'colour'). That means that within our retinas we have three "cones", each of which distinguishes one colour from red, blue and green. Each cone can distinguish about 100 "shades" of its specific colour. However, the marvellous human brain can combine those three colours in extraordinarily varied permutations, so most people can see over 1 million colours.

But there are some women who, rarely, are either full or partial tetrachromats (tetra meaning four). They see in four-colour vision. A full tetrachromat woman has an extra red cone gene of a different type of the usual red cone, that is situated exactly in the middle between the normal red and green cones, and which detects orange shades of colour rather than red. A partial tetrachromat woman has the extra orange-cone slightly too near the normal red cone to fully differentiate between shades. A full tetrachromat can see over 100 million colours. However, only women can be tetrachromatic. The red cone genes exist only on the X-chromosome, and only women have two X chromosomes, enabling the possibility that _both_ chromosomes will activate, in which case the woman will be a partial or full tetrachromat. It is also why far more men than women suffer from 'colour blindness' - if a woman inherits a normal X chromosome in addition to the other X chromosome carrying a deficient mutation, she will have normal colour vision, not colour blindness, as the healthy gene 'overrides' the defective mutation. Men, having only one X chromosome (the other being Y chromosome) have no 'spare' normal X chromosome to override the mutation should they inherit an X chromosome with defective cone-receptor genes.

NB 2 – Seasons in the Sun was Number 1 in the Hit Parade for a month in 1974; the song has also been "covered" by Nirvana (!) and Westlife.


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